"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids--and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."
- Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man"
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Present day photo along a walk way to the slave cabins. Photo from collection LABH.
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Dr. Cecil Bruce Ford's Track Team Photo from Springfield High School.
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A drawing of West Ford around 73 years old by journalist/artist Benson Lossing at the Mount Vernon Plantation in 1859 from the Harper's New Monthly Magazine. In Lossing...
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Martha Washington (from private collection of LABH)
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James and Elise dressed for church. James was always known to wear a bow-tie. They are the parents of Carol Allen Adams, James Allen Jr., Gregory Allen, Linda Allen B. Hollis, Joy Allen Stone,...
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Photo of Joyce Ford, wife of Harrison Ford. The couple had seven children: Terry, Harrison Wayne, Alison, Cheryl, Karen and Craig.
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This page lists the names and other information about the Mount Vernon burial grounds of the enslaved servants. The Ford family's oral history states that West Ford was placed in the old...
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Photo of author Janet Allen
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Charles Ross is the genealogist for the Thaddeus Ford family branch. Per Charles, his family branch starts with Thaddeus (born abt 1865-66), the son of Daniel...
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Land and Tax County map of Gum Springs. It shows the actual breakout with homes and streets near the original land given by West Ford to his children: William, Daniel, Jane and Julia....
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Photo of the entry sign at the Mount Vernon Slave Cemetery 2022. (Photo credit Mark Hollis for WFL).
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First cousins Wayne Ford and Candy Ford Webb's visit to Mount Vernon. West Ford is their 3rd great grandfather.
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Gazebo at Camp Butler Cemetery near the main house which today is it's office. George Ford's tombstone, in white marble, has a prominent place in the national cemtery.
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Picture of 1918 Junior Dental Class at Meharry Medical School.
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Elise Ford Allen and Florence Ford Pickett at Camp Butler in Springfield, Illinois as children. The mansion house on the cemetery was the home of Major George Ford. Annual family...
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Photo of Janet Allen, Linda Allen Hollis, Judy Burton and Joy Allen Stone on a visit to Mount Vernon. From LABH collection.
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A painting of George Washington around the age of 60. In the Ford oral history, the father of the country was also the father of West Ford and a slave named Venus. For almost 56 years,...
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Venus was a handmaid on the Bushfield Plantation. Bushfield was owed by John Augustine Washington, a brother of George Washington. As a child, Venus' mother, Jenny, was the...
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This page of burial records comes from 1929 minutes p. 46 about the graveyard which was used by General Washington for his enslaved at Mount Vernon. It delves into how the markers were worn and...
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